Description

1st Pitch: Finger crack up a beautiful left facing dihedral. (Some very wide stemming is possible)

2nd Pitch: Continue straight up past a left trending finger crack with a perfect ramp for your feet. Trend right past an old bolt with homemade hanger to a large obvious dihedral. We stayed on the face just left of the dihedral to avoid a few loose blocks.

This route has obviously had somebody on it in the past due to fixed gear, so if you know any info other that stated here then please comment.

Location

Located on the south side of the Sugarloaf near the rappel. Approach the same as Flea Tree, but continue around until you reach a 5th class slab with rappel anchors on top. Either climb the slab to reach the base of the route or scramble through 3rd & 4th class terrain to the right to reach the base.

Protection

Small gear to #2 Camalot Hand to fist size gear for first anchor, bolts for second anchor.

Photos of Many Times (a.k.a. Backside Cracks or Crackle Top) Slideshow

If this route is from the SW corner of Sugarloaf, fairly close to the "newer" rappel route, then I think we did this around 1972 time-frame. It was the old gang: Me (Reed Cundiff), Karl Kiser, Cliff Naveaux, Edmund Ward and Paul Seibert. There may have been a sixth. It was a beautiful crack and stem climb which was done with a lot of aid. I got to the entire one or two leads and put in a lot of Chounard Lost Arrows since this was years before nuts, much less cams became common or were even used. Then the second rope admitted they didn't have a hammer and all those lovely pins (all mine) were left in and somebody later went back and pulled them. We did think of rapelling down the route (and I did want back my 10 to 20 pins) but the first rope had already set up the standard rappels and were on their way down by the time the second rope got to the top. Always said we would go back and free it but other projects always came up.

We need more input. Hopefully Edmund or Paul can clear up the issue. I expect Edmund or Paul did the first FFA.

I was not on the FA, Reed just thought so because we all climbed together a couple of years later. It was an aid climb and the pins were left but by ca. 1982 when I climbed it with Matt Monagle (established rating then 5.10--name "Many Times", I climbed it 30 years ago and cannot remember exact details other than steep, good pro and stemming) there were only a couple of remaining pins.

It is possible that the route was just right of your route and then went left to the protection bolt and then to the top. Can you mark the old bolt on the photo? But it was an aid climb with a lot of placements and it does appear that the better crack is the line you placed on the photo.

I received an e-mail from Edmund Ward who had contacted Paul Seibert. His words: "hi karl, we did it with a step of aid. came back went free 10c after trip to the valley. easier than out limits."

The FA was Reed Cundiff, Edmund Ward, Paul Seibert and Glen Banks early in the year (cold, around 1976). Reed had a lot of pins and aided much of the crack. The followers were able to climb much of the crack free. Later that year the FFA was by Edmund Ward & Cliff Naveaux. Originally the climb was named Backside Cracks but renamed Many Times for the Southwestern Mountaineer's topos of the mid 1980s.